Pun Salad

Dismal reviews, but I queued it up at Netflix for reasons that I've long since forgotten. Still… Robert De Niro! Al Pacino! How can you go wrong?

I should have noticed that Jon Avnet was directing. He previously made 88 Minutes, which also starred Al Pacino, which also sucked me into watching, and which also stunk.

De Niro and Pacino play two grizzled and wrinkly cops who've seen it all. They are tasked with tracking down a serial vigilante killer who leaves scraps of paper with awful doggerel at every crime scene.

The investigation is interspersed with fragments of De Niro's apparent videotaped confession to the murders. That's unfortunate, because it means we are pretty sure right away that he's not the culprit.

So the movie throws in some superfluous characters so the viewer will have some more obvious suspects: Carla Gugino, another cop who's into a kinky relationship with De Niro's character; Donnie Wahlberg and the great John Leguizamo as two younger cops also on the case; Brian Dennehy as the Lieutenant in charge.

We're also thrown a bunch of red herrings. Everybody acts suspicious at one time or another. Overall, the plot manages to be contrived and nonsensical.

There are occasional amusing lines. Extra half-star for that.